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The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

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Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#311

Post by DiggyJohnson »

commandlinefan wrote: post #84
charlie0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more ridiculous is someone probably sued them and they were forced to do something asinine like that as CYA.

It's not like they're great at it, either. My wife is very visibly hispanic, and on multiple occasions when she went to pick up our (half white but not at all hispanic looking) kids, they'd send the wrong kids to the car because there were only two hispanic-looking kids left.

That sounds like the setup for a Simpson's sketch. Apologies for thinking that's hilarious.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#312

Post by lolinder »

dylan604 wrote: post #252
lolinder wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still a huge step back from previous generations, where all kids were expected to find their own way to their parents, whether waiting at home, waiting in the pickup loop, or waiting a few blocks away where it's not as busy.

Maybe you're misremembering some of the details of being a kid, but I know my parents signed forms that told the school that I would be walking to/from school. That was in the early 80s.

Do you have any memory of any kids being held in place until someone came to pick them up after 2nd grade?

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#313

Post by RandomBacon »

bluGill wrote: post #308
RandomBacon wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any possibility of anything How do I report you for taking the time to reply here instead of reporting that Amy, Brad, Charlie, Drake, Emily, everyone, etc.. parents all have the possibility of abusing them, that their siblings all have the possibility of abusing them, that their friends all have the possibility of abusing them, that their teachers all have the possibility abusing them, that you could be a victim o…

I'm reporting what the instructions are, not what I think about them.

Unfortunately bad instructions and no one getting those instructions changed, helps lead to this nonsense that we hear about in the news, and the thousand (tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) cases that are just as bad but not as newsworthy.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#314

Post by dylan604 »

lolinder wrote: post #312
dylan604 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're misremembering some of the details of being a kid, but I know my parents signed forms that told the school that I would be walking to/from school. That was in the early 80s.

Do you have any memory of any kids being held in place until someone came to pick them up after 2nd grade?

I never experience being picked up after school by a parent. Both of my parents worked, so I rode the bus or walked.

What exactly is your problem here though? The fact that kids are kept in a staging area so they are not congregating in the same space that kids that are actively being placed into cars? That's an issue? You'd rather have that area congested with kids not paying attention doing kid things with their friends after school?

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#315

Post by cogman10 »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #249
rdtsc wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't work in US until the whole culture changes. An individual family may do this, and then someone will call child protective services because there is a lost, unaccompanied child. Happened to my coworker: kids were playing outside and a neighbor called the authorities on them. Not clear if they really thought the kids were in danger, or just did it out of spite, but what ensued was a nightmare of CPS calli…

I understand that’s terrifying in the moment to have CPS at your door, but maybe the erroneous CPS visit is a one time cost we have to pay to change the culture, until CPS learns to ignore phone calls with no more details other than “children are outside”. If they don’t learn to ignore them - that sounds like lawsuit territory Change requires someone that doesn’t accept the status quo (I don’t have kids, but hope to…

> If they don’t learn to ignore them - that sounds like lawsuit territory

It's the reverse. CPS could be found liable if they ignored a report where there were indeed problems.

Also, I have family that work in CPS and it's really not the bad guy everyone that's "anti-CPS" seems to think. They have a HIGH bar to go over before they'll remove kids from a home. Things have to be particularly bad. And even then, the organization is slanted to get the kids back into the home ASAP. The state doesn't want to have to take care of kids.

Most of the time, it's work with the parents to make the environment safe.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#316

Post by cogman10 »

devilbunny wrote: post #286
jamesblonde wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mile is not close. Disclaimer: I am european. Grew up in ireland. Lots of cars, but unless you're in the countryside or its raining, it's generally walk/cycle to school. In Stockholm now, you are 'shamed' if you drive to school to drop your kids off. "Normal" parents have cargo bikes to bring their small kids to school if it's a long distance (like 500m or more).

You must have a lot of schools. I walked or biked about a mile each way to school starting in third grade (age 8-9), and the only reason I didn't do it a year earlier was that the two other kids who would accompany me were a year younger. I only got dropped off if it was raining (that can be quite severe and thunderstorms are common) or if I was so late that I couldn't make it. In the latter case, I walked home. Four…

Housing in Europe is very different from what it is in the US.

A lot of it will look something like this [1].

In England, it's actually somewhat unusual to have any space between two homes. Semi and fully detached homes command a fairly high price.

Roads were also not built for cars, so they tend to be much narrower than what you'd find in the US. All that means you'll find a much higher population density. You can even find a bunch of cobblestone roads without much effort.

I'd also say that cities are FAR more walkable than they are in the US. It's almost the reverse of what it is here, it can be easier to walk to the store than drive simply because there's a billion little pathways that lead everywhere.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraced_houses_in_the_United_...

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#317

Post by jamesblonde »

devilbunny wrote: post #286
jamesblonde wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mile is not close. Disclaimer: I am european. Grew up in ireland. Lots of cars, but unless you're in the countryside or its raining, it's generally walk/cycle to school. In Stockholm now, you are 'shamed' if you drive to school to drop your kids off. "Normal" parents have cargo bikes to bring their small kids to school if it's a long distance (like 500m or more).

You must have a lot of schools. I walked or biked about a mile each way to school starting in third grade (age 8-9), and the only reason I didn't do it a year earlier was that the two other kids who would accompany me were a year younger. I only got dropped off if it was raining (that can be quite severe and thunderstorms are common) or if I was so late that I couldn't make it. In the latter case, I walked home. Four…

Stockholm is a high density urban environment. Appartment living. 4-6 floor high buildings is the norm. Schools every mile or so would be my guess. Ours is like 300m away. Next closest is 1km and 1.5km. Quite normal, i speculate.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#318

Post by scruple »

alistairSH wrote: post #294
scruple wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because road crossing are genuinely terrifying today. The automobiles are too big and the drivers are too distracted. I have a hard time walking my kids across the street for school sometimes and that's with a crossing guard. People are fucking nuts and are driving around in these oversized vehicles with their phones in their faces. You can very casually, very trivially observe this any time you want by simply walkin…

Yeah, it's just insane that within .25 mile of a school, there is insufficient sidewalk and signaled crossings to allow walking. It's a complete failure of urban planning.

Honestly, it's frequently hard for me to not attribute it to malice.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#319

Post by jamesblonde »

cogman10 wrote: post #316
devilbunny wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have a lot of schools. I walked or biked about a mile each way to school starting in third grade (age 8-9), and the only reason I didn't do it a year earlier was that the two other kids who would accompany me were a year younger. I only got dropped off if it was raining (that can be quite severe and thunderstorms are common) or if I was so late that I couldn't make it. In the latter case, I walked home. Four…

Housing in Europe is very different from what it is in the US. A lot of it will look something like this [1]. In England, it's actually somewhat unusual to have any space between two homes. Semi and fully detached homes command a fairly high price. Roads were also not built for cars, so they tend to be much narrower than what you'd find in the US. All that means you'll find a much higher population density. You can e…

Ironically, i rode a rented electric scooter over hundreds of year old cobbles yesterday - needed to make a meeting on time. New meets old.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#320

Post by cogman10 »

bsder wrote: post #243
aklemm wrote: post #5

Well that headline sums it up. After 10 years of dealing with it and wondering "how the f did we get to this point", it's satisfying to hear it called what it is. A small win in our family was in my son's final year of elementary school when he finally decided to try walking home 1.5 miles; that Spring was a delight for him. He was properly decompressed and had logged a minimum amount of physical activity for good sl…

> After 10 years of dealing with it and wondering "how the f did we get to this point" While it's a lot of parental idiocy, please do consider that lack of enforcement action around bullying is also part of the answer.

I mean, walkability is a big problem for me. My kid would have to cross multiple busy streets in order to get to school (which is ~3 miles away). We don't have crossing guards either, the only ones we do have are literally at the school property.
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